CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.

We're delighted to be twice-referenced in Varla Ventura's Beyond Bizarre,
an entertaining collection of stranger-than-fiction stories and
trivia. In the chapter on famous magicians, hoaxes, and feats of human
endurance, see our explanation of why "open sesame" is the most
straightforward magical key.

An ancient druidic art, divination by cloud formations offers punctuation insights on many different atmospheric levels. The little fluffy altocumulus clouds may coalesce into periods, colons, semicolons, ellipses, and quotation marks. The thin altostratus clouds may form long dashes. Airplane vapor trails and cirrocumulus clouds may form forward or back slashes. The tall cumulonimbus clouds may combine with their altocumulous cousins to form question marks or exclamation marks. The lower stratus clouds may form short dashes, while the highest cirrus wisps may form commas and parentheses.

Students of art history will know that billowing punctuation figures into fifth-century Roman mosaics: "the cloud is simply a punctuation mark (a kind of parenthesis) that derives its meaning from the position that it occupies in a linear sequence” (Hubert Damisch, A Theory of Cloud, 2002). So, too, with modern cloud divination: the position of the punctuation within the hieroglyphic clouds is of vital importance.

Punctuated cloud divination can be likened to Klexographie—the European parlour game that inspired Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach to develop his famous inkblot test. One views a cloudscape through one’s inner eye so as to unlock the wisdom of the inner voice—that primal vestige that knows the answers but doesn’t always speak loudly enough for one to hear.

To begin, cast your eyes down to the ground and meditate upon your question. When the moment feels right, look up to the sky. The cloudy symbols and patterns you see will shed light upon your question. You may see multiple pictures within one cloudscape, joined or separated by punctuation icons. Do they tell a story? There’s no need to over-analyze what you see in the clouds; trust your initial responses to the images. Punctuated cloud divination speaks to your intuition, so allow your inner wisdom to pour forth. If you are uncertain of how the clouds illustrate your answer, or if you require additional insight, perform a second reading by casting your eyes downward again, allowing time for the animated cloud shapes to evolve, and then look up again.

Bracket ( { )Shaped to resemble the rounded contours of a cumulus cloud, "cloud brackets” are common architectural features in Buddhist pagodas.

Comma ( , )Cloud commas (also known as mesocyclones and hook clouds) sometimes develop eye-like features at their centers. "The cloud eye-lids that shadow / Stay not to see what will be done” (Edgar Lee Masters, "The Battle of Gettysburg”).

Dash ( — )A cloudy dash may foretell hurriedness. "The moon slowly arose, amid a fitful dash of clouds, and was no sooner from under one than she would dart beneath another” (Samuel M. Kennedy, First Loves).

Ellipsis ( . . . )Ellipsis clouds point out superfluousness: more than enough of a thing. "A few cumulus like ellipses at the horizon’s end . . .” (Christopher Buckley, How Much Earth).

Exclamation Point ( ! )The Hawaiians revere clouds as "the only animated features of the landscape, . . . ever with us.” The storm cloud is feared less than "the whirlwind with that exclamation point, the whirling chimney of red dust” (Charles Warren Stoddard, Hawaiian Life).

Question Mark ( ? )The mystic Osho considered the "immensely significant” question mark to be emblazoned "on each cloud, on each star, on each atom,” since the question mark addresses the eternal mystery of existence (The Book of Wisdom).

Semicolon ( ; )Postmodernist author Mia Couto likens the semicolon to a raindrop "born prematurely from a cloud.” Raindrops are ephemeral links between heaven and earth; as semicolons, they highlight the fluidity of the boundary as they simultaneously connect and separate (Phillip Rothwell, A Postmodern Nationalist: Truth, Orality, and Gender in the Work of Mia Couto).

"If David Lynch and Jorge Luis Borges created a book the result would be something very much like the writings of Craig Conley. As with those artists, Craig's work creates truly remarkable and subtle effects. His books are ones to dream with and learn from."—Lawrence Hass, Ph.D., philosopher & magician

"There is, it would seem, in the dimensional scale of the world a kind of delicate meeting place between imagination and knowledge, a point, arrived at by diminishing large things and enlarging small ones, that is intrinsically artistic."—Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

"Diminutive as a mote of dust, a mere peck of the pen, a crumb on the keyboard, the full stop — the period — is the unsung legislator of our writing systems. . . . It crowns the fulfillment of thought, gives the illusion of conclusiveness, possesses a certain haughtiness that stems, like Napoleon's, from its minuscule size. Anxious to get going, we require nothing to signal our beginnings, but we need to know when to stop: this tiny memento mori reminds us that everything, ourselves included, must one day come to a halt." —Alberto Manquel, "Point of Order"

In fact, if I am to be believed,* a "ballpark" estimate is etymologically unrelated to the brick-and-mortar ballparks in which America's favorite pastime is indulged. "Ballpark" in the temporal sense began life as "by all perquisites," a phrase first utilized by seventeenth-century bureaucrats to acknowledge that a fiscal estimate was just that—an estimate. (Merriam-Webster notes that a "perquisite" is "a privilege, gain, or profit incidental to regular salary or wages; especially: one expected or promised" [my emphasis]. Appending "by all perq." to a budgetary item was what we might call an instance of "CYA." Over the centuries, this term compressed itself to Hawthorne's "byalperk" [as seen in "More on the Custom-House; or, I Forgot to Tell You Some of the Fascinating Details of My First Summer Job"] and, in due course, Sinclair Lewis's "ballperk" [as seen in Hartdale, his satire about a social-climbing golden retriever]. It was only in the second half of the twentieth century that the association with baseball venues became irresistible and then indelible.

*Note: I am not.

---

June writes:

And by the time they get here, it will be almost night, honey, so that's already one day done.

---

Alexandra writes:

This accounts for why I am usually late... it's my throwback approach that time needs merely to be reckoned. Minutes are much more exciting this way!

Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Mindful Greetings and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.

Is it true, as Momus
suggests, that there are "few tales which would not be improved by the
addition of the phrase 'suddenly, a shot rang out'"? Decide for
yourself as we alter the opening lines of . . .

We contributed an article in the December issue of MAGIC magazine about our favorite magical gathering.

There are No S's in "Magic & Meaning"

by Craig Conley

What’s the secret for keeping a magic conference from turning into a “vicious circle”? For host Jeff McBride, it’s uncoiling that circle into a spiral, with a fixed starting point but enough momentum to spring. McBride’s unwound magic circle known as “Magic and Meaning” is an innovative, annual workshop held over four days in Las Vegas. McBride gathers a band of prominent thinkers, theorists, and philosophers of the art to spark insights for magicians from around the world. Attendees have only one thing in common: a quest to unravel the secrets of wonderment.

Named after a book by Eugene Burger and Robert E. Neale, Magic and Meaning is perhaps something of a misnomer, for the workshop doesn’t celebrate any one flavor of magic, and the so-called meaning of any particular trick is ultimately for each beholder to determine. But if we add an “s” to each word, we’re offered a clearer window into what actually unfolds here.

Magic(s) and Meaning(s) is an evolving concept, in keeping with McBride’s spirit of innovation (his Wonderground magic and performance art variety show was recently awarded most innovative nightclub experience in Las Vegas). Five years ago, the workshop was perhaps equal parts instruction, performance, and collaboration. Today, at a secret shelter from the city’s hubbub of excitement, breakthroughs are shared through succinct formal presentations (called PEP Talks) as well as more detailed keynote addresses, while the teaching of tricks and honing of skills occurs more intimately.

In October 2010, stalwarts Burger, Neale, Lawrence Hass, and George Parker led the proceedings. Keynotes included McBride’s secrets of meeting impossible deadlines and Neale’s revelations on the importance of being one’s own kindly dictator. PEP talks included Cory Haines’ ingenious methods for applying game show strategies to mentalism routines, Parker’s insights into how ocular blind spots gave birth to our conception of the devil, Jordan Wright’s demonstration that the surrealist artistic movement is magic’s greatest ally, Kenton Knepper’s cutting-edge techniques on character readings in magical performance, Gordon Meyer’s procedures for long-distance creative collaborations, and Abbi Spinner McBride’s explanation of how to birth miracles through magic “midwifing,” just to name a few. Other luminaries, like Luna Shimada, kept a low profile, with the promise of presenting next time.

In between formal talks and small group sessions, subtle teachings abound. For instance, Burger has a sort of running gag—he performs a brilliant card routine with someone, one-on-one, and as the gasps and shrieks die down his parting words are, “It’s the only thing I know.” His subtle teaching? I understood it to encapsulate several points simultaneously, including: “Do a single trick brilliantly and you’re a brilliant magician,” “To create wonderment is the one true ‘trick’ for a magician to master,” and “Speak with humility, tongue planted firmly in cheek—that’s great sleight-of-mouth.” Hass, a seasoned college professor, communicates his own subtle teachings in a different way. Loquacious as he is, Hass demonstrates by example the art of active listening.

The two words most commonly associated with the workshop—“storytelling” and “bizarre”—are not especially accurate. Magicians interested in storytelling are most certainly in attendance, yet while the inherent magic of language is celebrated, there is no formal instruction in crafting narratives. Indeed, Burger himself prefers pithily-condensed verbal accompaniments to his nimble-fingered feats. And while bizarrists may be attracted to the workshop, Magic(s) and Meaning(s) actually evolved out of a previous gathering called “Beyond Bizarre,” which actively sought to transcend the limitations and preconceptions of that label.

The most accurate word to associate with the workshop is likely “texture.” As Burger puts it, a highly textured magic show will take audiences in different ways, much the way a highly textured surface will reflect light across a broad spectrum. No two audience members will be dazzled by exactly the same sparkles. Burger suggests that how a trick is received is not what matters. “Once the trick is deceptive,” he explains, “it’s about me and what I want it to be."

Hass would seem to agree: “I believe seeing and feeling the tension about the meanings of magic is an important thing to do, because it prepares us for the step of figuring out where we want to land, and then walking the walk (and talking the talk) of our landing place.” Burger refers to a teaching in an ancient poem: what matters is the singing of one’s song, not its reception. He counsels magicians to let their magic “sing with greater clarity and love” so as to affect their audiences most deeply.

True to the spirit of self-determination, Burger discourages the brotherhood of magicians from using the word “we,” and in fact he considers that little pronoun to be an illusion of its own. “The deepest questions are personal ones,” he suggests to the workshop participants. “What do I want my magic to be? Because it can be anything!” His attitude is in keeping with the anti-proselytizing, pro-independence spirit of the event. Neale’s favorite definition of magic is “imagination at play,” and his goal for the workshop is “to encourage you to play with your imagination.” McBride’s own stated objective is to create a space in which individuals can shine in their own right.

Witnessing the complementary styles of the facilitators in action, one can’t help but to see them as cultivators of a magical garden. Burger—a bonsai artist, pruning away anything extraneous. Neale—a topiarist, fashioning shapes in some seriously silly ways. (As Neale says in Magic Matters, “It is important to be serious, and it is just as important to be silly with the serious.”) Hass—a hydroponic specialist, exposing the roots only to nourish them. Parker—a builder of matrices for vines to stretch upon in their own directions. McBride—a hedgerow trimmer, demarcating the fringes with safeguards and perhaps raising a labyrinth at the center.

Come to think of it, those two vanished s’s in the workshop’s title are perhaps best left invisible. According to Burger's credo on self-determination, there really is only one magic and one meaning—and that's yours.

"The most constant source of enchantment during those readings came from the harlequin pattern of colored panes inset in a whitewashed framework on either side of the veranda. The garden when viewed through these magic glasses grew strangely still and aloof. If one looked through blue glass, the sand turned to cinders while inky trees swam in a tropical sky. The yellow created an amber world infused with an extra strong brew of sunshine. The red made the foliage drip ruby dark upon a pink footpath. The green soaked greenery in a greener green. And when, after such richness, one turned to a small square of normal, savorless glass, with its lone mosquito or lame daddy longlegs, it was like taking a draught of water when one is not thirsty, and one saw a matter-of-fact white bench under familiar trees. But of all the windows this is the pane through which in later years parched nostalgia longed to peer." (Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited, p. 79)

Vladimir Nabokov offers our favorite tribute to the joys of coloring with a white crayon or pencil:

"The white one alone, that lanky albino among pencils, kept its original length, or at least did so until I discovered that, far from being a fraud leaving no mark on the page, it was the ideal implement since I could imagine whatever I wished while I scrawled." (Speak: Memory, revised edition, 1967)

Is it true, as Momus
suggests, that there are "few tales which would not be improved by the
addition of the phrase 'suddenly, a shot rang out'"? Decide for
yourself as we alter the opening lines of . . .

"How small the cosmos (a kangaroo's pouch would hold it), how paltry and puny in comparison to human consciousness, to a single individual recollection, and its expression in words!" (Vladimir Nabokov, Speak Memory, revised edition, 1967, p. 13).

Neither in environment nor in heredity can I find the exact instrument that fashioned me, the anonymous roller that pressed upon my life a certain intricate watermark whose unique design becomes visible when the lamp of art is made to shine through life's foolscap. (Speak Memory, revised edition, 1967, p. 14).

Is it true, as Momus
suggests, that there are "few tales which would not be improved by the
addition of the phrase 'suddenly, a shot rang out'"? Decide for
yourself as we alter the opening lines of . . .

NEW

Yet again, the semicolon's shadowy side is facing the reader. The semicolon is not visible, except in times of melting snow and great droughts. The lighted side of the semicolon faces away from the reader, as if it were asleep. This means that the reading lamp, reader, and semicolon are almost in a straight line, with the semicolon in between the reading lamp and the reader. The semicolon that we see looks very dark, like a snuffed match head.

Is it true, as Momus
suggests, that there are "few tales which would not be improved by the
addition of the phrase 'suddenly, a shot rang out'"? Decide for
yourself as we alter the opening lines of . . .

Imagine two quaint isles of contrasting shades. Let’s pull a couple of names out of a hat—perhaps Eire and Ellis. (Galapagos sounds too fancy.) We’ll paint one a brilliant emerald and the other a dull patina. Not long after a dreamy-eyed Darwin imagined a process of natural selection increasing complexity, the oxidizing eyes of Lady Liberty magnified simplicity for a million Irish immigrants: O’Conghalaighs devolved into Conleys, their family trees pruned down to a stump upon which to rest their weary feet. New books of genealogy, too modest for High Kings, began at Ellis Island. Straightforward Conleys carried on, oblivious to the echoes of their ancestral namesakes, such as dynast Conall Corc, or his fourth great grandfather Conn of the Hundred Battles (son of the passionate, furious High King Fedlimid Rechtmar, himself the son of a deity). In all fairness, from the perspective of the New World—factoring in the curvature of the earth and atmospheric distortion—it’s impossible to glimpse the glimmers of High King Crimthann Nia Náir’s silver-bossed shield or his sword’s inlaid golden serpents, both treasures purloined from the fairies. No fairies are perceptible on the lawns of Ellis Island. Where there’s no turning back, history morphs into mythology.

To stand upon the shoulders of the mighty requires not only a colossal step up but also concerted balancing and adjusted perspectives. What a hefty responsibility comes with owning one’s exalted heritage. What an effort of imagination it takes to draw one’s birthright into the limelight so as to illuminate the missing letters in one’s name. To be sure, a streamlined spelling can be a beautiful thing, so long as it meets the requirements of conciseness: clarity and completeness. Foggy origins and butchered derivations do not for a clear word make. And while it’s quaint to consider one’s home one’s castle, let’s not forget that every stony fortification begins as a "castle in the air” or, in the case of the Irish, quite literally a "castle in Spain”—as in King Milesius of Spain (1000 B.C.) who remembered a prophecy that his descendants would rule Ireland.

When our missing letters are of royal and/or magical origin, we find ourselves facing some rather profound questions and challenges. To what crown(ing glory) is one the natural successor? To what dignities? What traditions are one’s responsibility to keep alive? What untapped powers? If one’s Weltanschauung does not account for an Otherworld, how can one reconcile one’s nymph-glands? How are the descendants of a Celtic deity to appease another holy ghost? Truly, to scale ancestral branches is to hang topsy-turvy with Odin on the World Tree.

Is it true, as Momus
suggests, that there are "few tales which would not be improved by the
addition of the phrase 'suddenly, a shot rang out'"? Decide for
yourself as we alter the opening lines of . . .

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo ... Suddenly, a shot rang out.